The performance of a computing system can be improved by increasing the bandwidth across a high-speed interface that transfers data between two components of the computing system. The attenuation of a transmitted signal over the high-speed interface presents a significant challenge to realizing or achieving increased bandwidth. As the frequency of the signal or effective baud rate increases, so does attenuation. Thus, data reliability is compromised unless the signal is conditioned during transmission.
Data transmission rates in a high-speed serial interface may exceed 1 Gigabaud. The components linked to the interface negotiate to a common baud rate to ensure data reliability at the negotiated link speed. Existing host bus adapters implement the negotiation to improve performance of a particular system. The negotiation complicates interface design since a scheme to improve one particular computing system may not improve a different computing system. The implementation of a unique negotiation scheme for different computing systems is expensive. Accordingly there is a need for a high-speed serial interface that overcomes signal integrity problems associated with increased data transmission speeds by interactively negotiating the appropriate data transmission speed of components linked to the serial interface. Against this backdrop the present invention has been developed.